May 2018

Join us in celebrating our new grantees. On May 16th, the board members and life directors of the Field Foundation met and approved our latest round of grantees in our new grantmaking model Community Empowerment through Justice, Art, and Leadership Investment. This portfolio demonstrates organizations that are lifting new voices, developing community agency, and exploring creative enterprise. We are extremely honored to support this tremendous group of organizations!

CHICAGO — The Chicago-based Field Foundation proudly announces the appointment of new board member Lisa Yun Lee, a cultural activist and the Executive Director of the National Public Housing Museum.

Lee is a vigorous champion of the arts and a supporter of free and civil discourse, recognizing their power to build and sustain a strong, just society.

Her work and curiosity have given Lee a deep and diversified view of Chicago. From observing the epicenter of its graffiti community on the Southwest Side to co-curating a conference on socially engaged art, Lee understands the crucial importance of seeing the unseen and listening to the unheard.

“We are so honored to have Lisa join our board at this critical juncture in our work,” said Angelique Power, President and Member of the Field Foundation Board. “Her energy and ideas have ignited Chicago’s art and justice communities in brilliant and profound ways. Lisa will add much to our conversation as we unpack what the meaning of art is in the 21st century and seek to fund the incredible creativity in our city more equitably.”

“I’m thrilled to become a member of the Field Foundation Board of Directors,” Lee said. “They work in solidarity, partnership, and conversation with the community on issues related to equity and inclusion. And, as significant influencers in the foundation world on community-driven empowerment strategies through justice, art and leadership investment Field is having an incredible impact on some of the most important issues facing our city.”

Lee has served as the Director of the UIC School of Art & Art History, where she is an Associate Professor of Art History and Gender and Women’s Studies. She was most recently the 2017 Co-Curator of Open Engagement, an arts conference based at the University of Illinois Chicago.

As the previous Director of the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, Lee oversaw a renovation of the house, installed a new permanent exhibition, and she reinvigorated public programming at one of our nation’s most important historic sites.

Lee was also the co-founder of The Public Square at the Illinois Humanities Council, an organization dedicated to creating spaces for dialogue and dissent and for reinvigorating civil society.

She writes broadly about arts, culture, diversity, and aesthetics and politics, and has written a book entitledDialectics of the Body: Corporeality in the Philosophy of Theodor Adorno (Routledge, 2004), and also wrote the survey essay for the first comprehensive monograph of Chicago-based artist Theaster Gates (Phaidon, 2015).

“Lisa’s dynamic leadership at the intersection of arts and social justice will bring a wealth of experience and expertise to the Field Foundation” said Lyle Logan, Chair of the Field Foundation Board. “The Board will benefit from her many talents, because arts leaders such as Lisa know how to connect the dots between artists and organizers, creative expression and social change.”

Lee serves on the boards of the American Alliance of Museums, Imagining America: Artists and Scholars in Public Life, and 3Arts.

(BA, Bryn Mawr College, Ph.D., Duke University)

About the Field Foundation
Founded in 1940 by Marshall Field III, the Field Foundation is a private, independent foundation that has been dedicated to the promise of Chicago for over 80 years. The Field Foundation aims its grantmaking toward the goal of Community Empowerment through Justice, Art and Leadership Investment. With racial equity at the center of its giving, it directs dollars to critical organizations working to address systemic issues in Chicago and aims to directly benefit some of our city’s most divested communities.